HC Deb 02 August 1972 vol 842 cc836-52

5.45 a.m.

Mr. Greville Janner (Leicester, North-West)

I am pleased to have the opportunity, even at this hideous hour, to raise the unfortunate way in which the Industdial Relations Act is working concerning the dismissal of employees.

Certain sections of the Act concerning unfair dismissal were almost welcomed by the bulk of the population, they having been part of the programme of the Labour Party, but few thought that they would work out so unfairly in practice.

Section 22 of the Act gives the right to an employee not to be unfairly dismissed, and Section 24 provides: In determining for the purposes of this Act whether the dismissal of an employee was fair or unfair, it shall be for the employer to show—

  1. (a) what was the reason for, if there was more than one, the principal reason for the dismissal, and
  2. (b) that it was a reason falling within the next following subsection, or some other substantial reason of a kind such as to justify the dismissal of an employee holding the position which that employee held."
So far so good. The employer shoulders the burden of showing that the dismissal was fair and the reason for it: lack of capability or qualifications, misconduct, redundancy, or illegality.

Then subsection (6) produces one of the longest and most badly drafted sentences in the whole Act. It is not only badly drafted, but it is the epitome of pomposity. It reads: Subject to subsections (4) and (5) of this section, the determination of the question whether the dismissal was fair or unfair, having regard to the reason shown by the employer, shall depend on whether in the circumstances he acted reasonably or unreasonably in treating it as a sufficient reason for dismissing the employee; and that question shall be determined in accordance with equity and the substantial merits of the case. In other words, if the dismissal was fair, it was fair; if it was unfair, it was unfair. That is all it is saying in many more words.

The view taken by various academic lawyers is that this shifts the burden of proof on to the employee to show that in practice the dismissal was unreasonable. I do not take that view. I consider the burden still rests on the employer. It is said that apparently tribunals take the opposite view. I should welcome the opinion of the Minister on how it should be interpreted.

However that may be, we now have had some 2,500 cases in which employees have alleged that they have been unfairly dismissed. Of those cases that have reached the court—I do not know how many there are, but perhaps the Minister will tell us—it is estimated that 30 per cent. of the claimants succeed. In other words, there is a 70 per cent. failure rate. If so, it is monstrous. I should not be surprised if it were true, because when cases reach the tribunals employers generally turn up with an array of legal talent paid for by them and the employee generally turns up unrepresented. Indeed, it is the clear view of the tribunals, expressed in many cases through their apparent aggravation and irritation with those lawyers who appear before them, that these are courts where palm tree justice ought to be dispensed and it would be better if the lawyers kept out because then the tribunals could deal with the cases much quicker. The lawyers do not take that view. They know the complexity of the legislation. Nor do the employers take that view, because they want to protect their interests. The employees do not receive legal aid; they have to pay for representation out of their own pockets. I should like an assurance that the Department will look into the problem of representation before these tribunals in the light of the high failure rate of claims.

So we have the position that, against a background of continued monstrously high unemployment, the cushion for the employee who is unfairly dismissed is not operating as it should. There is a tremendously high failure rate of claims with employees being unrepresented and employers being represented.

I should like to know the statistics. How many employers are going to court represented and how many employees try to obtain representation? The Act has been in operation since 28th February and there is no reason why we should not know the facts. How many cases are failing and how many people are represented? What is the co-relation between the two?

The matter does not end there. Suppose that an employee is unfairly dismissed and the tribunal accepts that he has been unfairly sacked. As Lord Justice Sachs put it on one occasion, he has then got what amounts to property in his job. If the tribunal says that his property has been unfairly taken away, will he get his money and to how much is he entitled? What does Parliament say that he should get? The compensation provision is contained in Section 116. The Section states that the aggrieved party is entitled to such amount as the court or tribunal considers just and equitable in all the circumstances having regard to the loss which he has sustained and any consequences of the matters to which the complaint relates.

He has to prove his loss. It is not like redundancy payment which he would get in any event. The man who is made redundant and gets another job at a higher rate of pay the next day will get redundancy pay, but one gets compensation if unfairly dismissed only if one suffers loss. The Section then states that the loss shall include: … any expenses reasonably incurred by him in consequence to which the complaint relates and loss of any benefit which he might reasonably be expected to have had … So far so good. However, there are two provisos, both of which require thought, care, consideration and understanding by the employee. The same rule concerning the duty of a person to mitigate his loss applies as in the case of damages recoverable under the common law of England, Wales or Scotland. The Section states that he must be able to prove, if out of work, that he has taken all proper, due and reasonable steps to obtain other work.

That is fair enough, provided that he knows that the burden of proof rests upon him. Very often a person arrives at the tribunal and is incapable of discharging that burden simply because he did not know about it and no one had advised him that he would have to discharge it before the tribunal. The second provision states: Where the Industrial Court or industrial tribunal finds that the matters to which complaint relates were to any extent caused or contributed to by any action of the aggrieved party in connection with these matters … the Court or tribunal shall reduce its assessment to such extent as, having regard to that finding, the Court or tribunal considers just and equitable. I should like to know what the Minister considers that means. Apparently the tribunals are saying that it means that if a man was unfairly dismissed one has to see whether the employers had some justification for the dismissal, in which case the compensation which they have to pay is reduced proportionately to the employee's wickedness which gave rise to the unfair dismissal.

Either dismissal is fair or unfair. If it is fair, well and good, and the employee gets nothing. If he has been dismissed unfairly, robbed of his job, thrown on to the labour market and deprived of his employment, he is entitled to compensation.

Apparently the tribunals are saying that that means that the employee can be held partially liable. They can say that it was partly unfair but mostly fair, and apparently they can draw some kind of line between fairness and unfairness and penalise the employee. To take a perfectly ordinary case, if an employee is dismissed after his employer has shown dissatisfaction with the way the employee is doing his job, the employer may be faced with a claim for damages for wrongful dismissal. In that case the employee has to show that he was wrongfully dismissed. In other words, he has to show that he had done nothing which amounted to repudiation of his contract of service. If he shows that he is entitled to his damages, that is the finish. If he goes before the tribunal to claim compensation and not damages for unfair dismissal, apparently the Section is being interpreted as meaning that if he were guilty of misconduct but it was not serious enough to warrant dismissal, nevertheless that has to be taken into account when assessing his compensation. I suggest that that cannot be correct, and if it is correct we should know. What is the Minister's view in that regard?

We then turn to Section 118. Here we have the great fraud of the Act. Here we have the mirage par excellence. Here we have the greatest confidence trick produced by the Act. It says in broad terms that a person may recover not more than

  1. "(a) the amount which, in his case, represents 104 weeks' pay, or
  2. (b) £4,160, that is to say, 104 x £40, whichever is the less."
The amount an employee should be able to obtain is £4,160. That is his cushion, his two years' compensation. Out of work, one cannot get more than £40 a week. If one is out of work for two years, one should get £40 a week if one has been unfairly dismissed. This is as important to the man at the top as it is to the man at the bottom, for this is the age of executive unemployment. A man can be thrown off the board of directors. Forty pounds a week for two years is valuable to a man. It is crucial. This is the famous £4,000.

But I understand that not one single solitary person out of the 2,500 who have claimed that they have been unfairly dismissed has got £4,000 or anything like it. Is this true? If it is true, does the hon. Gentleman accept that this is a fraud on the public, that it is a shameful and disgraceful state of affairs that the figure is presented as the maximum which a person can obtain, because it was intended by the Government that there should be a two-year payment for people unfairly dismissed and are out of work for two years, whereas in practice they get nothing like it?

I understand that it is rare for any successful claimant to get more than a paltry sum. How much are people getting? Is it right that the vast bulk of successful claimants are getting less than £100, let alone £4,000. If so, why? The Act has been in operation since 28th February—five months. We should know by now. I suggest that it is correct and that the reason is two-fold. First, one has to lay claim in writing within four weeks from the end of one's employment. In the case of redundancy pay, one has six months in which to do it. I do not know why there is this distinction. One is dismissed unfairly and within four weeks one must lay a claim in writing. Generally, however, people make their claims earlier than that.

Secondly, the conciliation officer goes in. He knows, because it is his job, that the tribunals are awarding paltry sums and that there is therefore a substantial chance that one will lose one's case, as most people do. In most cases, I am told, he advises the claimant to accept a paltry sum because that is what he would be awarded by the tribunal. What are the sums which have been awarded by agreement between the parties and with the blessing of the conciliation officer? No blessing of the conciliation officer means no right to contract out.

The Department must know what the conciliation officers are doing. It is not a question of computers. I hope that I shall not be told to wait until the autumn for the computer to arrive. The House is entitled to know now which claims have been settled and the nature of the settlements.

Above all—and this is not a matter for a computer at all—what instructions are given by the Department to those conciliation officers? Suppose an employee is sufficiently stubborn and brave to get by a conciliation officer and to take his case to a tribunal as hundreds have already done. He will get to the tribunal, in time—between six weeks and three months after the end of his employment. What are the figures? How long does it take in practice? What is the period of time which elapses between the moment when he is sacked and leaves his job and when he reaches the tribunal? I understand that it is about six weeks to two months.

Let us say that the employee succeeds and the tribunal is satisfied that he has been unfairly sacked. He is entitled to his loss, to compensation for the loss he has proved. Is it £4,160 or two years pay at £40 a week? What can he say? He has been out of work for only two or three months. The tribunal, in my opinion, should adjourn the case or "stand it over". It should say that the person must continue to look for other work and that if he does not get it the Act is there to provide him with a cushion—that his loss of job has been caused through the unfair act of the employer but that at that stage the tribunal cannot say what was the full loss but will give an interim award. I take the view that the tribunal is probably entitled to adjourn cases, and I am told that some are adjourned. How many? If the Minister cannot answer, I ask him tell the House whether he also takes the view that the tribunals could and should adjourn cases in the proper circumstances. If he takes the view that they cannot, will he have the law amended to bring in a provision on no airy-fairy principle but on the basic right of an employee so greatly relied on by the Government.

At present, I understand, a man goes to a tribunal, having been unfairly dismissed and having been out of work for a couple of months. He is told by the tribunal, "You have lost two months pay. We estimate that you should get work in two to three months." He receives, not two years pay, as trumpeted by the Government, not up to £4,160 but maybe three or even four months pay, or more likely two months. What are the figures? Is this just a mirage? If so, what are the Government doing about it? Are tribunals receiving instructions, guidance or advice? Have there been consultations with the men or women who give the services? What consultations are taking place between his Department and those administering the tribunal?

What consultations are taking place between firms and advisers to the tribunals? Is it recognised that this Section is working unfairly and requires amending? These are the questions for people who have been unfairly dismissed. A man goes to the tribunal and the tribunal has to assess his loss. It should assess the loss up to date and then say that it will adjourn the matter and later assess the loss further. In practice the tribunal does not do that. It says that it wants finality. Why? It may be because of the heavy burdens placed on the time of the tribunals, for they are overworked.

But much more likely—and I have been told this on occasion—is the view that finality is necessary for everyone's protection and for the public good because of what is called in negligence actions compensation neurosis, which means that until an employee knows that he can get no more, he will not buckle down to trying to find another job. But at a time when hundreds of thousands of people are unemployed, I regard this as a totally monstrous approach to a dreadful human problem. People cannot get the jobs they want. There is a two-year cushion here and it can be kept supple by an intelligent application of the law.

Is the Department asked to undertake what one might call a market survey of the likelihood of other employment being available to the successful applicant? Is that how the tribunals reach their decisions? Are employees within the Department regularly or every required to give evidence whether a claimant is likely to get work or as to the availability of employment in his life? Is that how the stab in the dark is made? Is that the sort of torch that is shone into this area of darkness? If it is, then it is not good enough, but if it is not then it is impossible to understand how the tribunals can be expected to come to a decision, still less in a fair way, when they have no information to go on.

I sum up some of the questions put briefly and, I trust, fairly. In the Minister's view, where is the burden of proof in these cases? How many cases in fact succeed? How many of them are settled before they get to the tribunals? How many of the cases that are settled for sums of less than £100, how many for less than £500, and how many for less than £1,000? Have any been settled for £1,000 or more? Have any been settled on the basis of the full £4,000 anticipated by the Act?

Where are the statistics? Why must we wait for them for so long? When the Act has been in operation for five months, what is being done about this? What instructions are given to the conciliation officers? How long does it take before cases are heard? Are the tribunals entitled to adjourn to see whether other work is available and if not, why not? How often do they sit? What percentage of cases are adjourned? Is the Department asked by tribunals to give evidence of the likely availability of work for a claimant?

How real is the figure of £4,000? Is it, as I suspect, a confidence trick? Is it, as I suspect, a figure on paper hidden away in an Act of Parliament and relied on by the Government to justify this legislation, or is it real? Has anybody received it? Can the Minister name one person who has received that sum? If it turns out that this is an unreal figure and that the Act is not working as it ought to work in this respect, will the Minister inform the House accordingly and undertake to have the Act amended?

I am sure that the House would wish the tribunals to be properly paid for and staffed, but when we are voting money for this purpose, the House is entitled to know the manner in which the tribunals are carrying out their work, the circumstances in which they are doing it and what restrictions are placed upon them by the law and the effect of the law as it stands.

We have here a law that is meant to help people greatly in a period of unemployment, but in practice it is unreliable. If people feel that they are unable to rely on the provisions of the Act, the Section requires careful attention. I ask the Minister to answer the questions as I have posed them. I hope that the Minister and the House will regard them as fair questions about an area of the law that concerns hundreds of thousands of people who are or will be dismissed from their jobs in circumstances that have already produced thousands of claims.

6.10 a.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. R. Chichester-Clark)

I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Greville Janner) upon his eloquence at this hour of the morning and on his persistence in staying up till such an hour. I admired his fluency. It was like a machine gun burst. There were so many questions that I fear that it is very unlikely that I shall be able to answer all of them. If I fail so to do, I will, of course, write to the hon. and learned Gentleman and give him any explanation that I possibly can.

The hon. and learned Gentleman has in effect queried whether the operation of the industrial tribunals compensation arrangements for unfair dismissal claims is working properly and he has asked about the number of people using, in particular, Section 22 of the Act. May I first clear up one basic point which may cause some doubt in the hon. and learned Gentleman's mind and may certainly be a doubt in other minds. All cases of alleged unfair dismissal must go first to one of the conciliation officers of the Department of Employment to attempt a settlement before it goes to the industrial tribunal.

Of the 2,500-odd complaints which have been made in the first four months of the operation of this part of the Act, about 1,900 have been processed, and of these less than half have actually gone before the tribunals. The other 1,000-odd were settled or withdrawn by the conciliation stage. Obviously, this will to some extent colour the outcome of cases which actually reach the tribunals. There are cases where probably either an employer is being stubborn, in which case re-engagement is unlikely, or an employee is perhaps persisting in his claim against advice, and there are undoubtedly cases of that nature. So it is no wonder that there is a high proportion of cases dismissed.

The hon. and learned Gentleman said fairly that I would be bound to say something about the problems of the slowness of the computer. I am speaking in rough figures, and the hon. and learned Gentleman is entitled to criticise us for not being able to produce more and better data more quickly. Everybody has his own particular computer story. I had a case today which affected my own life so I am very conscious of these problems. It seems to be an unwritten rule of life that when one gets technological acceleration, things come almost to a grinding halt shortly afterwards.

Unfortunately, the best of computers, as the hon. and learned Gentleman recognises, require a large number of people to get them working. The computer staff of my Department have been very heavily engaged, as he will know, upon other modernisation, in particular lately on such matters as the matching of vacancies with the unemployed register and that sort of thing. When the programme does get under way and we have got sufficient data to attempt worthwhile analyses, which frankly is not yet the case, we shall have better data more quickly available than would otherwise be the case. In the meantime, the Department's officers are collecting and examining information about proceedings before these tribunals and there is a limited analysis of this information in the July issue of the Department's Gazette. These will continue to appear quarterly until the computer is fully operative.

Mr. Janner

Would the hon. Gentleman say when it is expected that the computer will be, as he puts it, fully operative? How long must we wait?

Mr. Chichester-Clark

I do not wish to be held to a date, but I hope it will be in the autumn. It may be somewhat later than that. It is impossible to be absolutely certain at this time. If the hon. and learned Gentleman has not a copy of the Department's Gazette for July I will send him one. He may obtain some of the information that he wants from it.

The hon. and learned Gentleman queried whether Section 22 is benefiting very many people. I suspect that he has read the article, which I read, published in the Sunday Times about 10 days ago. That article spoke of a 30 per cent. satisfied customer rate, and the question is, I suppose, what is a satisfied customer? By implication, that was the question posed by the hon. and learned Gentleman in his speech.

Mr. Janner

It is not a question of being a satisfied customer. In his excellent and helpful article, Mr. Vincent Hanna said that only about 30 per cent. of claimants succeed in getting any compensation. One does not become a satisfied customer if one receives £50 and should have received £4,000. Apparently, only 30 per cent. get anything. How many succeed in getting any money, and how much do they receive?

Mr. Chichester-Clark

I accept what the hon. and learned Gentleman says, and I was about to discuss what a satisfied customer is. It may be that he is satisfied only to the extent that, at least, he has had his complaint heard

Mr. Janner

Oh, really!

Mr. Chichester-Clark

Some people would rather have that than nothing at all. Obviously, in this kind of situation, not every case can be won, and nor can that be expected.

About 20 per cent. of cases so far completed, whether by conciliation or following a tribunal hearing, have resulted in either re-engagement or compensation. Rather over 20 per cent. of cases reaching tribunals so far have ended with recommendations for re-engagement or compensation. In the other cases, I am afraid it is simply a matter of the aggrieved person discussing his grievance with someone. He has had his case examined by a tribunal, and, whatever the outcome—I realise that this is not a satisfactory answer for the hon. and learned Gentleman, but we must face the fact that this is what does occur—he has had opportunity to air his complaint.

No one should conclude, or could possibly conclude, that because more than, say, 50 per cent. of cases go against the complainant the system is working inequitably. Inevitably, in the early stages, there will be a settling-down period, and there will be somewhat dubious—

Mr. Janner rose—

Mr. Chichester-Clark

In view of the time, I ought not to give way too much. Inevitably, people will bring forward in this sort of test period rather more dubious cases than they will later, simply because the Act is there. As to what is fair and unfair, as this becomes a little more widely realised, we may then, I suppose, expect some reduction—I do not mean to be offensive, but I use the term for want of other words—in the "try-on" cases. I do not think that the hon. and learned Gentleman is suggesting that conciliation officers have been acting harshly in cases before they go to tribunals—[Interruption.] Perhaps it was the burden of his argument. It is not a justified suggestion. In fairness to all concerned, they must, in dealing with either the complainant or the other party to the dispute, act to a certain extent as devil's advocate, but there is certainly no question of pressurising.

The hon. and learned Gentleman turned next to the question of the time taken over complaints, suggesting that the whole process of making a complaint takes a good deal too long. A complaint, as he knows, has to be made within four weeks of the effective date of dismissal. Obviously, the conciliation officer has then to examine the case, quite rightly, to see whether a voluntary settlement is possible. But this goes on simultaneously with the setting up of the tribunal hearing, the arranging of a meeting, the distributing of papers, and so on. The whole complaint may be dealt with in a matter of five weeks. We should like to see that improved in some ways, though this is not necessarily what the hon. and learned Gentleman is arguing for, but I do not think that it is too bad in comparison with cases in the courts of common law.

The hon. and learned Gentleman asked about the levels of compensation. He was suggesting that they were not very generous. I think that he had at the back of his mind a comparison with redundancy payments. The system by which industrial tribunals assess compensation in cases of unfair dismissal under the Act is based on the same principle as applies to the assessment of damages under common law. It is fair to say that the value of these principles has been proved by fairly long experience, and at the moment we consider them preferable to the alternative of fixed scales.

In the past hon. Gentlemen opposite favoured fixed-scale compensation based on such factors as length of service and age, but it was felt that that would be bound to operate inequitably as between employees in that it would not take account of their differing prospects of obtaining further employment, and this is important. The Donovan Commission was not in favour of fixed-scale compensation, and I do not see any reason to doubt that it was right in that.

The maximum amount of compensation that a tribunal can award is, under Section 118, 104 weeks' pay or £4,160, whichever is the less. That is a substantial amount, and it is in line with what the Donovan Commission recommended. It far exceeds the maximum compensation awardable under the legislation which the previous Administration produced. That was only £2,640 where an employee with more than 20 years' service and earning £40 a week was grossly unfairly dismissed and an employer refused to comply with an order for reinstatement.

It is also much better than the maximum of £2,100 which is payable under the Redundancy Payments Act. It is true—and this may make the hon. and learned Gentleman a little happier—that my right hon. Friend has powers under the Act to increase the compensation limit, and I can say now that my right hon. Friend would not hesitate to use the power if experience—and we need experience—of the operation of the Act showed the need for that to be done.

As regards the levels of compensation, as far as I know—and the hon. and learned Gentleman was right in suspecting this—no one has been awarded the full amount. To have that happen would require exceptional circumstances but it is true—and the Sunday Times was a little off beat here—that tribunals have awarded up to £3,000 on several occasions. In the majority of cases actual losses are small, and compensation is awarded primarily on account of loss of security. The majority of compensation awards by industrial tribunals so far have been up to about £500, and this compares with average redundancy payments in 1971 of £292.

I know that at the back of the hon. and learned Gentleman's mind is an anxiety to ensure that unfairly dismissed employees receive proper compensation related to the actual experiences they have been through. I think that that is a fair way of interpreting what he is getting at. With that in mind, he is suggesting that in cases where the complainant continues to be unemployed tribunals ought to make interim awards and to adjourn cases to allow for the later consideration of further compensation based on the length of time they were actually unemployed.

The trouble is that procedure would inevitably add enormously to the tribunals' case load, and that is a problem which is of consideratble concern, or might be. It is too early to say that it is. If that procedure were adopted, one or more hearings might be required before the final award of compensation was determined and that, too, could present further problems. There could be cases which dragged on almost interminably, possibly to nobody's advantage.

Mr. Janner

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Act contemplates that a person would be able to return for a period of up to two years to obtain the maximum, and that I do not quibble about the maximum being £4,160? What is worrying me is that the maximum is never reached, and that people receive vastly less because they cannot show their loss. I am not complaining that cases come slowly to the tribunals but that they come so quickly that the tribunals cannot fairly assess the losses. That is the problem the hon. Gentleman has not dealt with at all.

Mr. Chichester-Clark

I appreciate the hon. and learned Gentleman's point of view. It is simply a different point of view in many ways from that held at present in my Department. But I have told him that although it is true that the maximum award under the Act has not been made, as far as I can tell, there have been awards of up to £3,000.

Mr. Janner

How many?

Mr. Chichester-Clark

That I cannot tell the hon. and learned Gentleman now, but I will make sure that he knows as soon as it is possible to give that figure.

We must also be absolutely certain, however kindly a view we take of human nature, that such adjournments as the hon. and learned Gentleman proposes would not, with the prospect of further compensation, act almost as a disincentive to individual complainants' trying to mitigate their losses.

Section 116 provides that the tribunals must assess compensation according to what is just and equitable in the circumstances. The tribunals must take into account the total losses sustained by the employee as a result of his unfair dismissal. These include both reasonable expenses already incurred and loss of expectations. Therefore, the tribunals must in practice take into consideration not only unemployment already experienced but factors such as future employment prospects elsewhere.

The hon. and learned Gentleman asked whether the tribunal had to be aware, through the Department, of the employment position in the area, of the complainant's future employment possibilities.

That is in general terms true, but not I think related at present to specific vacancies. Other factors must be taken into account—loss of accommodation which went with the job; loss of reputation or status; loss of pension rights; loss of security, as for example arises from the loss of eligibility to claim a redundancy payment or complain of unfair dismissal for two years after taking up a new job; and any reduction in future income as a result of having had to take a lower-paid job. But it is true, as in common law suits, that the dismissed employee has the responsibility to mitigate his loss—for example, by trying to find appropriate employment—and compensation is reduced where the employee is found by the tribunal to have provoked or contributed to his dismissal, or where he unreasonably refuses re-engagement or otherwise makes no efforts to help himself.

So far we believe that the tribunals have taken full account of the complainant's employment prospects. The hon. and learned Gentleman can feel reassured about that. They have awarded generous compensation in respect of possible future unemployment where the case warranted—for example, where an employee approaching retirement age was dismissed and his chances of finding further employment were considered to be remote.

I think that I have answered the hon. and learned Gentleman's question about the Department's giving evidence on work availability.

There is no conclusive evidence of tribunals shifting the burden of proof back on to the employee. The Act states that the employer must show the reason for dismissal. Then there is the fact-finding process. The claimant then has to put his own version to establish whether his reason is correct, the tribunal having first decided whether the employer's reason was fair. On the question of legal aid, this has been the subject of a review on occasions and it was decided not to apply it to tribunals. Legal proceedings at the tribunals are in general kept informal and it is comparatively rare that barristers or solicitors are employed, although I bow to the hon. and learned Gentleman's experience.

If this is shown to be acting against the claimant's interests it could be re-considered. I could not say that it would be considered with enormous favour. One of the problems, and it is only one, which would stand in the way of this would be the whole question of caseload. It is too early to assess the work that will fall on these tribunals. We have only had four months of their operation and we are not yet up to full strength with them. There is the question of allowing appeals from those who have had less than the two years which is required under the Act. There are many instances of those who have had less than two years wanting to use the tribunal procedure. It is likely, if there were any alterations, that they would have preference over what the hon. and learned Gentleman suggests, even if his suggestions found favour in other respects.

It would be of great help if he were able to say to his trade union friends that nothing would give greater pleasure than that they should come forward and work with these tribunals, adding their valuable experience to this work and helping to increase the number of people available and thus reducing—and this may be necessary—the caseload falling upon the tribunals.

I realise that I cannot have answered all the points fired at me rather rapidly by the hon. and learned Gentleman. If I have failed to do so, I shall be happy to write to him.